Around the World in 8000 days: Churches and Devils in Kaunas, Lithuania

Welcome to our travel blog. We are Tabitha and Nic. In 2011 we 'retired' in our early 40s and set off to travel the world. We spent our first year in South America and have been lucky enough to make two trips to Antarctica.

Our blog is a record of our travels, thoughts and experiences. It is not a guide book, but we do include some tips and information, so we hope that you may find it useful if you are planning to visit somewhere we have been. Or you may just find it interesting as a bit of armchair travel.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Churches and Devils in Kaunas, Lithuania

Vilniaus Street, Kaunas

From Plunge, we drove on to Kaunas, which is the second largest city in Lithuania, and which we did an early unintended circuit of after taking a wrong turn.

We arrived, in the afternoon, into a very hot and humid city, which was very clearly threatening rain.

We had just managed to get a few practical things done, and gone for a simple lunch, when the rain deluge hit.

Vytantas the Great, Kaunas

During a short lull from torrential to just heavy rain, we moved to café and we stayed put there for some time to escape both the rain and the humid warmth.

Once the rain stopped, we left the sanctuary of the café, and had time to appreciate the quaint and cobbled Vilniaus St, which is now mostly dedicated to eating and drinking, with a few buskers of very mixed quality, but manages not to be too tacky.

For now though, we found a supermarket to buy our provisions for dinner at the flat, and went back to cook, and think about what sightseeing we wanted to fit in, weather permitting

Field of Sacrifice, Kaunas

The next day, we started on a bit of sightseeing. We went away from the old town, along Laisves. We passed an imposing statue of Vytantas the Great, who was the Grand Duke of Lithuania during the important Battle of Grunwald in 1410.

Opposite it was the somewhat simpler Field of Sacrifice, which is a monument to 19 year old student, Romas Kalanta, who set fire to himself on this spot, as a protest against the soviet system. That was 14 May 1972, and now, that date is commemorated in Lithuania as the National Day of Civil Resistance.

St Michael the Archangel, Kaunas

At the top of the road, was St Michael the Archangel, the rather grand, if somewhat shabby, Russian Orthodox Cathedral. It is actually a military church, having been built in 1893 for the Russian army that were based here, and after WWI it was passed to the catholic Lithuanian army.

Sugihara Museum, Kaunas

From there, we walked up to the Sugihara Museum in the Old Japanese consulate, to see the story of the Japanese Consul to Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara who saved the lives of around 6000 Jews, by giving out transit visas for them to escape via Russia and Japan.

Whilst that seems like it would just be a part of his job, he was in fact told by his bosses in Tokyo that he was not to issue them, as it was awkward given that Japan and Germany were on the same side. He, with the support of his wife, decided that he could not live with what the inevitable consequences would be for the persecuted Jews, so did so anyway.

Sugihara Museum, Kaunas

The museum was only small, but it was a good story. It could have been improved a little, by telling more of the story of those that were saved, and more about what risks he faced personally for defying his orders.

He wasn't the only one to do this kind of thing, the Dutch consul, Jan Zwartendijk is also credited with saving many people in the same way.

Zaliakalnis Funicular, Kaunas

Back down the hill, we stopped off for lunch in a place called Retro Avenue, which was quite pleasant and had a good choice of simple food, as well as some nice cakes. It is a decent choice if you are in this area, the furthest end of Laisves from old town.

Christ's Resurrection Church, Kaunas

Refreshed, we took the little old 1930s Žaliakalnis funicular railway to and from the huge white Christ's Resurrection Church, which certainly didn't looking classically catholic in design. It was started in the 1930s, but only finished and consecrated in 2004, having been used as a warehouse during the Nazi regime, and as a radio factory in the Soviet occupation.

Christ's Resurrection Church, Kaunas

It was simply decorated, all sleek and white, but it was an interesting church. It was certainly larger than the average church, with its 70m tall tower, cavernous inside, and unusually in a church, a huge roof terrace.

The view from the top isn't that scenic, but it did show that Kaunas is pretty big, and gave us a quick view of the bits that we weren't going to be getting to during our visit.

Museum of Devils, Kaunas

After the church, we couldn't resist going in to the Museum of Devils. This collection of over 2000 devil figures and images, was put together by Antanas Zmuidzinavicius. There was some good information about some of the exhibits, and how devils are linked to different things such as witches, animals, nature, and even to helping windmills and their millstones turn. We probably could have spent longer in here, but as Nic put it, it was 'Hellishly hot.'

Castle, Kaunas

We found another café to recover from the heat of the museum, and then, as we passed the recommended and very popular looking Rocknrolla, we decided to stop for dinner. It was, as you might guess from the name, a U.S. style place, and the service was pretty slow, but the food was great, so it was worth the wait, as long as you aren't in a hurry.

The next day, we didn't do a great deal in the morning, so had an early lunch in Pas Stanley, which purports to be 'your home away from home'. it certainly had a nice welcoming feel to it, and a decent choice of smaller plates.

After lunch, we walked around the old town a bit,. The castle looks OK but has obviously been much redeveloped since the 1368 original. The exhibitions inside are supposed to be good, but we didn't bother.

Old Town Hall, Kaunas

The Town hall square looked impressive, with a cluster of 16th century merchant houses, around it, most of which are now restaurants. Whilst the setting is pleasant to look at, there was a bit too much traffic passing around the square for it to be somewhere we would want to sit at one of the many outside tables.

The Town Hall itself is actually no longer a town hall at all, but a church. It is a popular place for weddings, and there were a number happening in the short time we were there. Some enterprising person has set up a mini reception service outside in the square, so that the groups come out of the church, and head over to a table with nibbles and champagne set up.

The old Town hall, with its 53m tower, was begun in 1542, and had numerous makeovers, including one in 1780, which looks more like its current style. It became a church in 1824. In the winter they have an outdoor ice skating rink there.

Perkunas House, Kaunas

Wandering around the town, we passed the pretty little 18th century red stone St Gertrude's Church, the somewhat larger 1408 St Peter and Paul's Cathedral, and Perkunas House, aka Thunder House, which was in interesting looking late 15th century Gothic building, that has undergone various uses over the years and is now a school for art classes.

We had just stopped for a drink outside a nice little café, when we realised that the weather was again looking decidedly iffy, so we gave up the - at that time sought after - outside table, and went inside instead. That turned out to be an excellent decision, as shortly afterwards the deluge started, the café became packed, and the people who were still outside got very wet.

Kaunas

Partly due to the heat, and partly due to the rain, there were quite a few things that we didn't do in Kaunas, including the open air ethnographic museum, an edge of town monastery complex, and the Ninth Fort split between history of Soviet crimes and the Holocaust, as well as numerous smaller monuments etc. So there is actually quite a lot here that could keep you busy for a good few days, even if you fit a lot more into a day than we usually do.